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The Galleries And Museums Win Lovely Dosh

Manchester City Galleries, Whitworth Art Gallery and The Manchester Museum make up three of sixteen national winners

Published on January 25th 2012.

THE partnership of Manchester City Galleries (Mosley Street building, pictured above), Whitworth Art Gallery and The Manchester Museum today received confirmation of three year’s major grant funding from Arts Council England (ACE) making them one of only 16 major museum partners across the country.

ACE judged the partnership proposal as outstanding, commending the work the three organisations do with their internationally recognised collections

The Arts Council received 29 eligible applications for major partner funding, requesting a total of £116 million over three years. The 16 successful applicants requested £23.5 million a year against an annual budget of approximately £20 million.

The exact amounts of each major partners awards will be finalised as part of the negotiations of their funding agreements. This represents a significant and vital investment in Manchester ’s major museum and galleries.

ACE judged the partnership proposal as outstanding, commending the work the three organisations do with their internationally recognised collections, the strength and diversity of their work with audiences in Manchester and across the region and their innovative work with children and young people.

The award reflects the success of the strategic partnership between Manchester City Council and the University of Manchester , established last year with the appointment of Dr Maria Balshaw as joint Director of Manchester City Galleries and Whitworth Art Gallery . It enables partnership venues to further increase their contribution to the city’s cultural life, with the development of:

· City-wide learning programmes, using Manchester ’s remarkable collections, focused particularly on engaging families and older people and building on distinctive strengths such as arts and health and volunteering

· An international exhibitions programme, building on each organisations’ distinctive strengths, bringing these together for the benefit of visitors

· Shared approaches to promoting cultural tourism, retail, environmental sustainability and fundraising to make all three organisations financially resilient.

Councillor Mike Amesbury, Executive Member for Culture and Leisure, said: " Manchester is working hard to realise its ambitions to become a world-class cultural city. This major grant to three of the city’s finest cultural institutions is a fantastic endorsement of our lively artistic scene and great track record in sharing our cultural wealth with the widest possible audiences.”

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester , said: "I’m delighted to hear that our groundbreaking partnership between the University of Manchester and Manchester City Council has been recognised as outstanding by Arts Council England. This award will ensure our great heritage institutions continue to offer intellectual, cultural and artistic leadership for the city region and beyond.”

Our city does get some things very right; underlines its cleverness in strategic thinking. It appears that by unifying the directorship of MAG and WAG, by getting the university institutions to work closely with the city, it has pulled off the coup of gaining extra funding for three cultural venues in one city when there were only 16 awards given out nationally. Excellent news.

What great news but can we have some soundbites from someone other than the usual suspects please?Jonathan, its a pity there is no strategic thinking going on in Mike "culture" Amesbury's brain and also Sir Howard Bernsteins. He arrogantly stated a year ago that if the new 8m National Football Museum fails to get future funding then it would fall to the taxpayer to foot the bill. How lovely. No risk to him whatsover. He needs to seriously rejig council finances a bit better, maybe then we'd have more respect for him? He can then have a chat with Mr Amesbury, and begin by putting a halt to the ridiculous amount of dosh that a small known pub team FC United is getting towards a stadium in the middle of a residential area, Moston in North Manchester. This figure of 750k, along with a 550k "loan" could be spent more wisely and we need to have more say in this. Perhaps then he may be able to repair and reopen Heaton Hall and Wythenshawe hall and seeing that the youth service has been scrapped too, create a few more skateboarding areas in our parks rather than plonk one massive facility in eastlands? Stop crying poverty and blaming the government, we've heard it all before, you fool nobody Mike except your doting dumb sheep followers. Get your priorities right you dont know the meaning of the words "cultural heritage".